stled by a rough-looking foreigner, who apologized
in broken French, and whom he took to be a Czech or Hungarian. No one
seems to have witnessed this incident, but I have not questioned the
man who sold him the stamps. Anyhow, after dinner, at twenty minutes
of eight to be exact, he came into the lobby, intending to inform the
clerk that he had closed the bedroom door and left his key in the room.
We have ascertained that this statement is true; the door had to be
forced, because a bag of golf clubs had fallen and become wedged
between the door and the side of a steel trunk. Curtis never did speak
to the clerk about the key; at that instant, he says, his attention was
drawn to the queer behavior of the foreigner who had pushed against
him, and who had been joined in the meantime by another man of similar
type. They seemed to be very excited, and were apparently expecting
someone to turn up, either in the street or from the hotel--Curtis
fancied that they were on the look-out for interruption, or news, from
both quarters. The porter on duty at the door, who is not quite
intelligible to-night, remembers asking these men if they wanted a
taxi, but they gave no heed to him. Then, according to Curtis's
version of the affair, an automobile dashed up outside, and a young man
in evening dress, carrying an overcoat, stepped out, and told the
chauffeur to keep the engine going, as he would not be detained more
than a minute. At that instant the two foreigners--Hungarians
according to Curtis--sprang at the newcomer, and endeavored to force
him back into the auto. Failing in this, one of them drew a knife, and
stabbed him so severely that he died within a few minutes, and without
uttering an intelligible word. Curtis ran to help, but was too far
away to prevent the crime, and was further balked in an attempt to
seize either of the wretches by having the dying man's body flung in
his way. He endeavored to hinder the escape of the scoundrels in the
automobile, but failed, because the chauffeur was evidently in league
with them, and, when he came back to the crowd which had collected
around the prostrate man, it would appear that someone gave him, by
mistake, the victim's overcoat in place of his own. This error was not
discovered until the police came to search the dead man's clothing,
when various documents showed beyond question that the overcoat
believed to be his was really Curtis's. Curtis told his story in a
clear an